


After

by BadgertheGnome



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Afterlife, Bisexual Dean Winchester, Canon Compliant, Canonical Character Death, Castiel/Dean Winchester First Kiss, Dean Winchester Has Internalized Homophobia, Dean Winchester Uses Actual Words, Dean Winchester processes his internalized homophobia, Destiel is canon, First Kiss, Heated Kissing, Heaven, Heaven is good for self acceptance, Heaven is queer, Idiots in Love, Implied Sexual Content, Jack is a Benevolent God, Kissing, Love Confessions, M/M, Other, Post-Canon Fix-It, Reunion, but only to get them to Happy Ever After in the next realm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-13
Updated: 2021-01-13
Packaged: 2021-03-18 00:47:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,773
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28734426
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BadgertheGnome/pseuds/BadgertheGnome
Summary: After leaving Sammy on the bridge, there's one more person Dean Winchester needs to see, to make his Heaven complete.~Canon-compliant semi-fix-it story to deal with the absence of the reunion/love reciprocation scene we should have seen, between a certain repressed hunter and a certain gay angel.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 8
Kudos: 70





	After

Dean Winchester didn’t know what he expected things to be like, after something finally got him, for good. But he certainly didn’t expect this peace. This hope, welling up inside of him.

Sammy left him on the bridge after a while, walking back the same direction Dean had driven. He was content in what his brother had told him about the afterlife and that Eileen would be waiting for him nearby. He told Dean he had to let her know their kid – Dean junior, of all freaking things – was okay. Of course Dean the first had understood and trusted the road to get Sam where he needed to go. Space seemed to work differently here, just like time did. So what Bobby had said, about them all being close, Dean just knew that meant her too.

Near like _all_ their family was now…but not quite.

When Bobby had told him that Cas was there in Heaven – out of the Empty, after all, helping Jack set paradise right – Dean had just _known_. A burden he’d been denying for weeks had been lifted. He’d thought it was too late – on Earth, it felt like all he could do was give up, hoping that somehow, they’d both find some peace. Even though they’d been so wrong about each other. Even though the Empty was supposed to be some terrible thing, and he couldn’t imagine the angel having to deal with constant pain, because of him. He couldn’t bear it. So as usual, he’d shoved it down and pretended to be fine. To never think about that or about what Cas had said to him. Not about what Cas’ pure happiness was, and definitely not how, or what, that made him feel. What that made him want to finally admit, and reach for. So now… hearing those words, in this place of perfect Love and acceptance, he knew.

Cas would come for him.

They would have the time they needed, after all.

Dean got back in Baby and kept driving, sure that their family would understand him heading further down the road for this. He didn’t know what he would find there, but he was sure – finally – that it would be perfect. The fear wasn’t gone yet, but it was father away. Less real.

The sun was starting to set as he finally pulled off into a driveway that led to a small house overlooking the river. It was small, not big enough for a family, but it didn’t need to be. They all had their own spaces now. A part of him itched to go inside, to see what Jack and Cas had set up for him. But that didn’t feel right, yet. He wasn’t meant to go into this house alone.

So he turned the engine off, slowly stepped out of the car and lifted himself unceremoniously onto the hood. At first, he just crouched there, staring out at the water and the trees. Waiting. Then the golden waves of the sky turned to a deep blue flecked with sparkling pinpricks, and he lay down to stare up at them.

He wasn’t sure how much time had passed when finally he felt the fluttering rush of wings beside him, a familiar weight taking up the passenger side of the hood. His heart half stopped in his chest, suddenly unsure of what he’d see. Would he be back in his “natural” form or whatever, stories high, sitting perched like a bird beside him? Or, _however_ he looked…. what if he’d misunderstood, before, after all? Releasing a breath through his nose and laying all of his hopes on the peace and security of this place, he glanced over.

Cas was there. _His_ Cas, as he’d come to know him. As he’d come to love him. Though he knew now, he’d love him no matter what shape he took. Everything was so much clearer.

He wasn’t looking at Dean yet, laying there beside him on the hood of the Impala, his arms casually at his sides and his gaze also fixed on the stars above. But he was smiling, his eyes bright and full of grateful softness. Dean found that his were, too.

He shifted closer to him. “Hey man.”

“Hello Dean.”

“Jack got you out?”

“Yes. There have been some… rearrangements.”

Dean chuckled. “So much for hands off.”

He could feel Castiel’s smile with his whole being. “Yes. He didn’t want any of us to suffer anymore.”

Awkwardly, Dean smiled back, still not looking at him. Without thinking about it too much, he moved his hand to rest closer to Cas’s side, palm turned up. Open.

Inviting.

Feeling the movement, Cas did finally look at him, his own hand inching closer even as his brow furrowed.

“Dean…this isn’t what I meant to happen. I had hoped – well, that even if you couldn’t… that you would have a long, happy life.”

“I know,” he replied, cheeks flushing as Cas’s eyes – Cas’s gloriously “alive” and _here_ eyes – settled on his face. “Ain’t your fault that I live the way I do. I was _trying_ to settle, I was. I even had a job lined up – a real, normal job – but I just…..” He did look at him then, finding them both fully on the verge of tears. “It wasn’t ever gonna work. I could pretend all I wanted, I would say I was letting Jack go, letting YOU go, till I was blue in the face. But even with Sam, it just…. it would have been empty.”

Cas’s mouth twitched at the corner and formed into a flat almost-smile. Dean blanched.

“Come on, you know what I mean.”

“I do,” he conceded, laying back again to look back up at the sky, but closing his eyes. “I just wanted what was best for you, Dean. The best life you could have.”

He took a deep breath. “Yeah, well. Maybe I get to have that now. Here….with you.”

He could feel Cas’s gaze snap back to him and the disbelief on his face, even before he really registered it with his senses. The angel opened his mouth to speak, closed it, kept staring.

He waited, or wanted to wait, but began to feel fear slide in again. “Is that…. I mean, I thought you wanted…”

“I do.”

“The _one_ thing you want, right?” he chuckled nervously. Pressing on, choosing bravery. He was NOT going to let his panic, that fear of what others could think, get in the way _here._ This was a place beyond that. Perfect. And it wouldn’t be, without him. Without them together.

“I know you know what I meant, Dean,” he responded with familiar exasperation, and Dean couldn’t keep from grinning.

Then his smile faltered, a little. “It’s possible here too, right?”

“Of course it is, but….”

“But what?”

Castiel shifted closer, more upright but not quite sitting up, fixing Dean with an intense stare that looked into his very soul. There was hope in his eyes, but also a guardedness, and Dean felt himself remembering just how ancient Cas was in relation to him, to almost everything. But even in that, the love he had expressed in that desperate moment in the bunker still shone through.

“Dean,” he finally said, quietly and carefully, “I don’t want you offering something you don’t really desire, out of any kind of loyalty or obligation. You owe me nothing. I offered my love freely with no expectations, and that can be enough. That _is_ enough.”

Dean swallowed hard. “It’s not enough for me.”

Then, letting go of that deep-seeded fear at last, he slid his hand on top of Cas’s. First just laying it there, then – as the angel reciprocated by lacing their fingers together – grasping more firmly. Possessively.

They lay like that for a moment, neither of them moving, hardly _breathing._ But that wasn’t enough, either. Without thinking, Dean’s whole body turned and shuffled to press against the crumpled trench coat and suit still clothing his otherworldly love.

_His_ , he thought. _Mine._ And Dean smiled as he pulled Castiel into a kiss.

Cas gasped, the sound quickly becoming a soft moan, all filled with disbelief and relief and that same pure love that shone on his face every time Cas had looked at him. Every time. He had _always_ seen it, now that he thought about it. Not that he was doing much thinking right now, that first tentative contact quickly deepening into desperate grasps as their mouths and hands travelled everywhere they hadn’t been allowed to in life. After that first hesitation, Dean found that Cas believed him. Trusted him. Was just as sure, just as eager, as he was. He was impressed.

He expected that rush of fear to come back, as it always had on Earth whenever he’d let himself start thinking of what this would be like.

But it didn’t.

He was free.

Dean laughed lightly and pushed gently against Cas’s chest to breathe for a moment and take that in. Cas let him, somehow knowing, and nipped at his jaw one more time before pressing their foreheads together.

“Cas?”

He let out a happy but slightly impatient sigh. “What, Dean?”

“I love you too.”

The angel Castiel closed his eyes, a long-held breath flowing out of him into the biggest smile Dean had ever seen on his face. God, he was so beautiful. And then he was kissing him again, not a care in the world between them.

“Hey,” Dean gasped, between other more exciting sounds. “If – if you have your mojo back – oh, _damn_ – ah, could you -“

The rush of air and soft flutter of wings filled the air around them again, and they were inside the house – in a bedroom filled with blues and green, though Dean hardly registered that. They were still tangled together and finally shedding clothing now, Cas pinning him against the wall, and then the bed, claiming him just as strongly as – or stronger than – he had when he pulled him out of hell. And Dean let go, giving in to this thing between them.

Love. Always, and after all this time.

The next morning, they would talk. They would. Start to take it slower – maybe – and see how a human in the afterlife would go about being bound to a re-empowered angel of the new lord. It was unexplored territory, and at long last, it didn’t scare him. He didn’t have to shut it out.

They were finally where they were always meant to be. In the end, not because some other power had chosen it for them. But because _they_ had. Together.

~

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Artwork is my own, and thusly, used with permission. 
> 
> May we all always claim these idiots and celebrate their canon romance.


End file.
